Trend Analyses of Accidents and Dependability Improvement in Financial Information Systems

In this paper, we analyze the trends of significant accidents in financial information systems from the user viewpoint. Based on the analyses, we show the priority issues for dependability improvement. First, as a prerequisite in this study, we define "accidents," "types of accidents," "severity of accidents," and "faults." Second, we collected as many accident cases of financial information systems as possible during 12 years (1997-2008) from the information contained in four national major newspapers in Japan, news releases on websites, magazines, and books. Third, we analyzed the accident information according to type, severity, faults, and combinations of these factors. As a result, we showed the general trends of significant accidents. Last, based on the result of the analyses, we showed the priority issues for dependability improvement.